chronicles of an igorot in australia. a photoblog in parts, this is intended as a diary, travelogue, memoir, journal, palimpsest, igorot blog, accounts of misadventures, running battles or whatever it turns out to be. there might be souls out there with common interests. do post a comment.

Sunday, 10 September 2017

Working Man's Blues #12&35. Notes from the Surat Basin

Queensland has the two largest producing basins of coal
bed methane (cbm) in Australia - the Bowen and the Surat Basins. It also has the
largest artesian basin in the world - the Great Artesian Basin, the main source
of freshwater for agriculture and human use in inland Queensland. The hydrological
boundaries of GAB are different from but overlap with the boundaries of the constituent
sedimentary basins. In recent years, I have been in these basins for some
work stints - on the railroads, the pipelines, the
highways and the waterways.

Horses and cattle in remote agricultural paddocks.

A dingo watches closely from the tall grass, as the gas flares burn.

Some gas pipes are big enough for cars to drive through.

Where the gas pipelines cross the railway lines,

the long roads are next in line.

On the river mouth, out to port.

For decades the Surat and Bowen basins have been happy
hunting grounds for many of the world’s largest coal producers. The recent
emergence of coal seam gas (CSG) has seen major international oil and gas companies
dig in the same proving ground as the coal mines. CSG has been a boom for the Australian
and Queensland economy over the past decade.

Pipes as far as the eye can see, ready to be buried, and then remain unseen.

But I seen the old railway carriage, in Calliope historical village.

The Surat Basin extends across several townships in the Darling
Downs; from Toowoomba to the Western Downs (Condamine, Chinchilla, Dalby,
Miles, Tara Wandoan), the Maranoa (Injune,Roma,SuratandYuleba), and many other villages and communities
in Banana Shire and Central Highlands.

Several environmental and economic concerns have been raised
in relation to CSG, and governments and politicians at all levels, have promised to
protect people against coal seam gas development. But whether the environment
and longer-term sustainability will prevail over agricultural, political and/or
economic interests, remains to be seen.